Reviewing the project
The thing I benefited most from on this project was
the interaction with the children from a deprived area. I gained experience
working with children who would not normally get the chance of working with
artists. The children showed enthusiasm toward learning something new,
which to be such a part of I felt was good.
The challenge of creating a public piece for the
council was something I had never done but was keen to do. The challenge
in getting the other members of the team organised was a massive test to my
commitment to the project. I felt like if I had not kept the others motivated
the project would not have been completed in time. I felt extremely capable and
now have more confidence in leading other projects like this after taking the
lead on this particular project.
The most challenging thing about the project was
having a lot of the work to be done left to myself. It felt like I had
the work of three people to do myself. My organisational skills came into place
where I had to direct the other team member in what to do. I felt there
leadership lacked due to other commitments and not as much energy towards the
project like myself. I also felt that being the older member of the group the
others were looking up to me to tell them what to do. I did like the fact
that I had other members of the team to help with decisions and ideas. I would
conclude that having other members of the team really did help when taking the
children out into public spaces. This helped with having one on one experiences
with the children to help them take photographs as well the health and safety
factors.
What have I learnt about leadership?
Leadership is a hard skill to learn and I think
comes with experience. In this particular project, I think I had to become the
overall leader to get the others to be managing their own roles. I felt if I
had not done this the project would not have been a success like it was.
On looking back on what makes a good leader from
the beginning of my training, the following role descriptions from
Belbin’s Team Roles were given to me by the group after undertaking a team
activity:
·
Shaper – dynamic and thrives under pressure jumps hurdles with determination,
·
Implementer- reliable and efficient,
·
Team worker- good listener and good co-operator and
·
Completer – finisher – an eye for details and spots errors.
These I feel fit with the role I developed and
demonstrated in this particular project.
What have I learnt about communication?
Communication is very important in leadership and
working in a team, this project would have failed if we did not communicate
effectively. I realized I had to get in contact with people from Ibbison Court,
Blackpool Council, the other artists and other people as part of my role.
None effective communication would have let the project down.
The group mainly communicated verbally via meetings
that were arranged to organise what was going to happen next. I also telephoned
and emailed Angie Buss to organise the workshops at Ibbison Court. I am used to
sending emails to organise meetings and getting in contact with people so I
felt at ease with this method. I found it harder to talk to people face
to face that I wasn’t familiar with rather than talking on the phone.
Doing this course has made me more confident in
talking to official people to organise events like the Culture Shop. I would
like to develop more contact with official people to gain more confidence in
myself. I developed different skills in talking to people as I had to change the
way I spoke to people of different ages and in different positions. I would
talk to Clancy who was the Arts Engagement Officer for Blackpool Council Arts
Service using a more official style and then change my language to a more
relaxed tone with less complicated language to speak to the children at Revoe.
I enjoyed talking to the children and showing them how to use the camera. I
felt that they were learning from me and I was teaching them new skills which
they could carry on using.
What have I learnt about planning?
Planning the project helped us to keep to task and
gave us something to work to. Lesson planning the workshop helped us set a plan
for the children and to have a back-up in case our first plan did not work. I
realised that plans need reviewing more often than we did. I felt that we did not
always follow the original plan and therefore they need to be updated more
often.
I found that setting timescales and deadlines for
tasks was vital for good planning for us to keep us focused, even if the entire
group didn’t keep to the tasks given. The timescale for this project was
tight for us as a group so good planning was a key part to keeping us on target.
I felt the planning process was very handy to help me keep to time even though the
others did not really keep to this. However, the others not sticking to the
plan had a massive impact for the team and the overall project as certain tasks
did not get completed, for example the advertising.
We used different types of planning. We had specific lesson plans that outlined
our objectives we wanted the children to do and what we wanted out of the
workshops to happen. I researched using lesson plans from a trainee teacher I
know to help me get the idea of planning a workshop. This helped us to deliver
the workshop to time and have objectives for each other and to try to be clear
on what roles we were allocated, with the plan outlining this for us. The
lesson plan shows all the activities we needed to get through. I sourced the
resources for all the activities which were discussed between the team and
written in the lesson plan. I also learnt how to network between different
organisations talking to members of Blackpool Council, the other artists and to
children from Revoe. Keeping to budget was pretty easy as we are all students
and are used to working to a tight budget and not spending a lot of money. The
downside for this I think materials could be chosen with better quality but on
other hand the time scales affected getting better materials because we did not
have the time to source them.
Overall allocation of tasks was decided at the meetings
we held where each us had a role to do for next time we were due to meet.
This was not always an effective way because some members of this team
did not always do their tasks and left other people to complete things, which
mainly happened to be me. I felt I was the main task leader in this project as
I feel I was always picking up the pieces.
The plan was not always followed and changing due
to people not pulling their weight in their tasks. I felt I carried other
people in this project because I knew we had a timescale to stick to. I felt I
did more of the project than the others. I think if we planned in more
details on each of the tasks set in our smaller meetings maybe the others would
have been more clear on what they were doing. If I was to do the project
again I would get everyone to agree and write down their own plan rather than leaving
to myself to always organise, affectivity holding more accountability.
What have I learnt about my art form?
I learnt other skills which developed my own
practise, for example I learnt how to do stereotype prints. What I found
interesting was that the other girls did not realise they needed a laser
printer in order for the image to work.
I think the presentation of the photographs could
be better if we had more time to source better quality materials which were hardwearing.
For example the heat of the hot summer affected the piece because it was in a
window for 3 weeks. If we had used other better materials then this would have made
the piece look more professional and look nicer in the window. The card may
have looked a bit cheap and therefore sourcing another material could have
improved the over-all look in my view. The size of the photo cards were
commented as being a bit small. We could have enlarged these postcards so they
could be seen from across the road. This could have attractived people to come
over and look in the window. This also could have made it easier for the public
to view the piece.
There is always ways to improve when creating a
piece of art work. This has been great for my development in art as I have
taken on board the comments so if I was to create a similar piece I would take
these things in to account. Reviewing a piece art work yourself is hard
because it becomes a personal piece so other peoples’ feedback is very helpful.
I will use this method again knowing how it has helped me with my personal
development.
What I would do differently next time?
I would have reviewed our plans more often because
things develop. We would have been better updating our planning to fit
with this. I think having a couple of back up plans ready to come into play
would have helped us. One of our back up plans was to use a different workshop
indoors if the weather was not good. This involved creating personal memories
drawing and writing about the local area. The children would draw places like their
house and the idea off the session which I created was to give them some help
to think of local buildings or places they have some memories of. The weather
wasn’t great but we still managed to go with our first option and to get out
with the group take photographs. We were
then able to use the other workshop in week two. We probably should create
better back up plans but again because the time was so limited this put
everything under pressure. I think if we had more time other things may have
happened to create a more improved piece. On the whole I think we did a good
job in the time scales which we were left with.
I learnt that I can always learn new things from
people. For example allowing the children to play on the playground I did
not think of the health and safety issues in the rain with the equipment being
wet and the children being in our care. This all came from the experience of
working with the children, which I would not have learnt without this
experience.
I think the photography project went down very well
in the area; we got great feedback from children and the leaders who said they
pleased with the outcome. I personally think there were things we could improve
on this photography project but I would use this again. I was overall happy
with the project and really enjoy this project and leant a lot from doing
it.
I would have liked to have started earlier with the
project - I would have felt better prepared. I did feel a bit rushed in part
due to the lack of time we had. I think we could develop the project in the
future and get more out it. We could run more classes with the children which I
am sure they would have loved. Again I think if we had more time we would present
the work in a different way. As mentioned above we could have had better
quality materials and enlarged the images. I felt if the other artists did the
allocated tasks in the project then it would help in the little time we had. I
think they would learn more if they took responsibility in their role in the
task and not left it to myself to pick up the pieces to
finish the project.
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